


All the Little Things

by Silicu (silmil)



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Character traits, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Fighting Together, Loki has a sweet spot for Tonys bots, M/M, Observation Skills, The Long Way Round, Tony is a workaholic, this surprises exactly noone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-03
Updated: 2014-07-04
Packaged: 2018-02-07 07:33:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1890384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silmil/pseuds/Silicu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Independent drabbles and ficklets written for the Frostiron Month 2014. </p><p>Chapter One: Character Traits - Observant<br/>Chapter Two: Fighting Together - The Long Way Round</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Loki observes. Contrary to popular belief, so does Tony

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, so this is my first time doing this kind of thing, so I hope I don't mess it up too bad. I'll be updating the tags and rating apropriately with every new chapter, since it's a series of drabbles and they're not exactly the same here :P Enjoy!
> 
> Originally posted at [my tumblr.](http://silmil-of-erebor.tumblr.com/post/90558729399/frostiron-month-character-traits-observation-skills)

Loki has always been good at observing, at noticing things and understanding them, at knowing how to twist them to his advantages. So, naturally, he’s good at seeing things. Although, admittedly, one does not need to be a master observer to notice Tony has a tendency for overworking to the point of harming himself.

The first time, it’s in the lab. Nothing major, not really, but after more than 70 hours without the man leaving his workspace Loki had leaned back beyond the glass wall… just in time to see Tony almost blow himself up when he dropped a wrench on the ground that started a potentially deadly chain reaction.

The time after that, his little team of super heroes had been chasing one threat after the other for close to a week and Tony and Thor were the only ones standing towards the end. Five consecutive attacks and 4 near fatal injuries to the rest had worn them down and Tony’s reflexes were far from perfect.

And then there had been the time when he actually passed out in the middle of working on schematics because he _hadn’t_ _slept_ for close to a _week_.

Loki observed and Loki saw and Loki put his knowledge to use. He saw how Tony would be loose and lazy after being bent over a table, thrown against a wall, pressed into a bed. He saw how Tony would eat if it was something exotic that Loki had grabbed from the other side of Midgard simply for him to try. He saw how Tony would grumble and bring his schematics to bed when Loki demanded his company, but would be asleep within half an hour of wrapping himself around the god.

So he made use of his information and he kept watch on Tony. He would give him his space, but when the engineer would neglect to sleep for two night straight, when he would miss more meals than he ate, when he would ignore everything that was not his work, Loki would step in.

“Put it down,” he murmured into Tony’s ear, hands wrapping around his waist and pulling him flush back against his body.

“Yeah, sure,” the engineer leaned back into his body, hands still steady at work and voice distracted, “I just gotta check the new delivery system for the repulsors, won’t take more than a couple of hours, then I can do the test drive and-“

Grabbing the hand than now flashed over the holographic images, Loki spun him around and swallowed his words, lips and tongue and teeth stealing the protests from the human’s mouth until they turned into appreciative murmurs.

“Put it down.” Tony grinned at him, eyes dancing.

“Well, if you put it like that…”

\-----

Despite of what many people thought, Tony didn’t _actually_ live his entire life with his head in the workshop. Sure, he got lost in his work sometimes, but those were usually the times he ended up revolutionizing one field or another, so there was no reason for people to complain about it.

Point was, he noticed things. It was the first thing an engineer needed to be able to do – to see every part, to notice it and observe it, and know what it _does_. To understand how it complemented the machine and know what would happen without it.

So, Tony observed and noticed. Admittedly, he looked at machines most of the time and used his observation skills for that, but every once in a while something caught his eye and once it did he couldn’t just let it drop.

So once he noticed Loki’s propensity to protectiveness, he couldn’t forget about it.

He’d first observed it in the many stories of their childhood as brothers that Thor tended to retell _loudly_ when drunk. He noticed Loki’s loyalty and habit of always being where Thor needed him, of always getting them out in one piece and rarely breathing a word about it.

It was a lost cause now, though, and he didn’t even need to look to see. Much love had been lost when their dysfunctional family fell apart, but Loki’s habit of keeping others safe when he considered them important was still there… Only it wasn’t aimed at Thor anymore.

There had been the incident with the lab that may or may not have been the product of 3 days without sleep, where he had almost ended up as a dark scorch mark on the ground, and only Loki dragging him through the glass had saved him.

Then, there was that blasted week when Doom and HYDRA and who-ever-the-fuck-else had decided to _not stop attacking_. Loki, who loudly and at every chance he got tended to declare how he was _not_ an Avenger and had _nothing_ to do with their superheroing, had crashed the party and gotten between the Iron Man suit and a giant lizard. It had been around the time Tony’s head had found as appropriate to remind him that no, it was not a good idea to sleep one night out of 6.

It was after that, or maybe after that time Tony had been working on the improvements on Barton’s arrows and had _maybe kind of_ forgotten to sleep for a week, that it became a habit. A few days after he lost himself in some project, around the time JARVIS usually tended to start politely snarking at him that he needed to sleep, Loki would slip into the workshop and drag him away. Most times it would involve sex, the kind of sex that turned Tony into a boneless heap and he had no choice but to rest and savor the feeling until inevitably sleep took him.

Tony noticed these things, just as he noticed how he seemed to collapse less often since Loki had started his little games. He observed and he saw how pleased with himself _Loki_ was every time Tony was drifting off in his arms. So he didn’t complain.

Much.


	2. Enemies, frenemies, allies, friends, lovers? Who knows?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Two: Fighting Together - The Long Way Round
> 
>  
> 
> _So perhaps it isn’t so surprising that they’d ended up here._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted at [my tumblr.](http://silmil-of-erebor.tumblr.com/post/90767344759/frostiron-month-fighting-together-the-long-way-round)

Tony Stark disliked magic. Or rather, he believed that using magic was fucking _cheating_ the laws of physics, and given that he had tried and failed to do that many times before (he might have _bent_ them this way and that on occasion, though), he took it as a personal offence.

That being said, he somehow managed to become the negotiator with the Avengers’ very own magic consultant. Go figure.

No one was exactly sure _how_ it had started. The first time (that the rest of them knew of, at least) had been when Doom had somehow managed to _shrink_ everything in Tony’s lab and effectively turned it into a fully functioning _doll house_. Tony had been _beyond_ furious. He could have (maybe) managed to make something to counteract the effects of the magic _if his goddamn tools weren’t too small to hold_. So as soon as he’d dug up Dum-E, You and Butterfingers from the depressingly small pile of his equipment, Tony had stomped to his floor and blocked any outside access.

A few hours later he was out looking self-satisfied and took great pleasure in delivering the news that _Loki_ was going to fix his tech. Natasha, Clint and Steve had looked at him as if he’d _finally_ gone off the deep end, Bruce had looked _genuinely_ concerned for his mental health and Thor had looked like he was _very_ seriously trying not to get his hopes up.

By the time they’d all made their way up with the elevator Loki was blinking quizzically at Dum-e’s claw, now appropriately eye-level with him and snapping threateningly. And… everything seemed to be back in place. More than that, everything was the right size and _working_.

Of course, then Loki proceeded to efficiently insult everyone in a single sentence and declare in no uncertain terms that they owed him a favor and he _would_ collect on it when he deemed fit.

They were, of course, prepared to have devil to pay for making the god work for them, and were, predictably, all in different levels of disbelieving and distrusting when a couple of days later Loki appeared with a list of things he wanted Thor to retrieve for him from Asgard. Their disbelief and distrust reached new heights, when a little later the blond god returned with the promised ingredients, and upon receiving them Loki just smirked and threw a look at Tony with a parting,

“Always a pleasure doing business with you, Stark.”

Perhaps the most surprising fact was that Loki never used those ingredients to blow Earth up or make their lives miserable. Or at the very least, he hadn’t _yet_ and there was a bet between Clint and Bruce on when the god would snap and do it.

It only escalated from there, of course. The stronger Earth’s heroes became, the more powerful enemies decided to try them. It wasn’t only Doom now, it was HYDRA and AIM and aliens and goddamn _magic users_. And magic and the Avengers got along like candles and curtains. Or, rather, like candles and chlorine triflouride, if you consider all the collateral damage. And the damned magic users _wouldn’t stop_.

So within a year the Avengers had to deal with someone magically blocking Earth’s gravity, undoing a time loop that encompassed the whole of Manhattan and being _turned into dogs_ (at which point JARVIS proved Tony wasn’t quite the only one capable of solicitating Loki’s services. Dummy may or may not have had something to do with it).

And the favors they owed Loki somehow _didn’t_ blow up in their faces. Trust wasn’t an easy thing to build between enemies, but somehow they had managed to cultivate a proper working relationship and that was… something.

So perhaps it isn’t so surprising that they’d ended up here, almost ten years after the Chitauri first rained over their city. Loki, proud, untouchable and bristling with anger standing shoulder to shoulder with Tony, the Iron Man suit doing nothing to hide the satisfaction in every line of his body.

And before them, the Enemy of all, the Mad Titan, Death’s very own consort. It seems… fitting, that after everything he would be the final piece to shift them from functional not-enemies to full-blown allies in one fell swoop.

And just as tensions are high and the battle imminent, Tony turns, Tony looks at the god and raises his visor. He grabs Loki by the straps of his armor and drags in for one long, hard, scorching kiss.

“No, the pleasure was all mine.”


End file.
